I was just wondering that. Am I misremembering or was it misspoken. It wasn’t the priest that explained it, just a teacher that was preparing us.
The law creates other exceptions. How about talking to your lawyer? Also disgusting?
Correct. The priest cannot reveal any details that arose in confession, but is perfectly free to disclose what he witnessed.
The teacher might have been mistaken, or might have said to your class that for a serious crime, the priest would tell you that you have to turn yourself in to the police, and that long-ago admonition got slightly altered in your memory.
I don’t agree.
First, the guilty actor himself has an absolute right not to incriminate himself, and that’s a good thing, on balance: he should have that right.
As a society, we have balanced other competing harms and found that it allowing other privileges to stand is not an unqualified good either, but on balance, we believe them to enhance society.
These additional privileges include attorney-client, because we hold very highly the right of an accused to have adequate representation, and that cannot be delivered if the client’s confidences can be extracted from the lawyer.
Priest-penitent allows the religious counselor to have a voice in urging the penitent to publicly confess without stifling the avenue of confession. If penitents knew their confessions could be repeated – they’d stop making them.
I vaguely remember something along the line of “the priest may decline to forgive your sins until you confess” said in a tone that clearly implied that this was incurring Gods wrath and was far worse than anything you could suffer on this earth.
Of course this was in the 70’s and the nuns were…less than compassionate…
I defer to Bricker on the subject of Roman Catholic doctrine, but as far as Lutheran confession confidentiality, there is a sort of exception, more or less.
A confession made as part of the rite of confession and forgiveness (we have such a rite, although it is not one of our sacraments) is considered pretty much as absolute as for Roman Catholics. No pastor who hears a confession of any sin may reveal it. Period. The pastor can refuse absolution if the person does not repent, but even if the person does not repent, the confession may never be revealed.
However, pastors also do counseling. In that context, pastors are bound by the rules applyiing to other kinds of counselors, like therapists - they must maintain confidentiality unless there is some ongoing or imminent crime.
Regards,
Shodan
Husband of an Ordained Lutheran Minister and Former Lutheran Seminarian
However, one important thing is that there are many crimes like drunk driving and possession of drugs that are very difficult, in a practical sense, to prosecute if the person was not caught in the act. E.g. if I went down to my local police station and stated to the officer on duty that I wanted to turn myself in for committing a DUI last Tuesday for which I was not pulled over, what are they going to do about it? Probably tell me not to do it again and maybe see a counselor to find out if I have an alcohol problem.
That’s part of the legal system and even then isn’t absolute. For example;
(quotes are from the California evidence code)
Therapist/patient privilege has exceptions as well.
As far as I can tell, the priest/penitent privilege doesn’t have any exceptions. (Evidence code 1030-1034, and referring to 912)
Who decides if a lawyer’s determination of danger is “reasonable”? Does the lawyer have full discretion to decide that a client seeking assistance for a DUI defense must necessarily have an alcohol problem that must be reported to the DMV right away!!!1111!1!one? Does it go before a judge? Does a jury get to decide?
How do I know? My point was that there are exceptions in attorney/client and doctor/patient, but none in priest/penitent.
I probably should drop from this topic for a while. After a week with my ultra religious family, I’m feeling a little hostile about the whole subject. I believe everything I’ve said, but don’t want to risk saying more than I really mean to.
And the priest-penitent privilege is ALSO part of the legal system.
The crime-fraud exception refers to future crimes. It allows no disclosure of past crimes.
It shouldn’t be.
In your view.
we’re not in GD, so that’s what I bring to the thread.
Look, it’s not like this is the only place in our legal system that ‘reasonable’ is used. In fact, the idea of reasonableness is pretty much embedded everywhere.
The point is, a trial isn’t supposed to decide if the danger was reasonable according to what the least-in-touch-with-reality paranoid delusional resident of the Arkham home for the criminally insane would believe, it’s what an average, calm, sane, not-idiotic person would believe.
Yes, that’s a judgement call. But that’s part of what well, judges, do. Juries, too, on occasion. And of course, in criminal trials, a prosecutor would have had to decide it was a crime first.
You’re entitled to your opinion, but IMHO your suggestion would not benefit society.
Note that we’re not talking about preventing a crime. That is mentioned in Cathoic canon above, but here we’re talking about evidence at a trial.
IMHO, your statement is essentially a religious one, and isn’t acceptable as a driver of public policy. Your opinion stems from your belief (which I share) that there isn’t some sacred act of confession that alters the relationship between a person and God. Yeah, I agree.
I’m sure you’d agree that the law shouldn’t prevent anyone from adhering to their religion, assuming it does no serious harm to society. So the question is, does permitting sanctity of confession harm society? No, it doesn’t. It prevents a priest from revealing something he wouldn’t know if there wasn’t sanctity. As Bricker says above, if it isn’t protected, people wouldn’t use it.
Let’s take it a step further and stipulate that the Catholics are right (God forbid!) A law that prevents a potential penitent from getting right with God causes irreparable harm.
The cost-benefit analysis of the sanctity of confession is pretty clear. The benefit is religious freedom, which is very important, and the cost is minimal: it’s the cost of those convictions you’d get for people who are foolish enough to confess even though privacy isn’t guaranteed.
I demand religious freedom. I demand the ability to be an atheist without anyone dictating to me that I pay observance to what I feel is mythology. Likewise, I feel it’s equally important that I not impose my atheism on others. Violating the sanctity of the confessional would be imposing my (lack of) religion on others, and I wouldn’t stand for it.
The case of preventing a serious crime is harder to argue, and I am not addressing that. But it’s not the issue in the OP.
If I’m not mistaken, mandatory reporting is about preventing harm, not providing evidence at trial. If so, any differences between MRs and priests is beside the point, for trial testimony. Please let me know if I’m mistaken!
Yes I know that, my point was that the law (at least in CA) has exceptions for every other sort of ‘privileged speech’ except for the religion one. From my what I can see, it’s given absolute protection which gives it (in my mind) a preferential treatment. That doesn’t make any sense to me.
I freely admit I don’t understand the catholic and other denominations view of confession. Growing up in baptist and non-denom environments, such a thing didn’t exist at all. The idea of someone acting between you and God was non-existent. (In part, based on 1 Timothy 2:5)
Hmm, I might agree with that. My primary objection is that it creates a privileged communication out of basically nothing. Attorneys, therapists, spouses…these are all legal relationships or licensed professionals. With the religious one, we’ve essentially said “Because your group has decided these things are secret, we’re just going to go along with it.” That makes me very uncomfortable.
I don’t think this is true. You need to be truly spiritually repentant, and the priest can urge you to turn yourself in, but I don’t think they withhold a sacrament based on a secular requirement. Bricker?
My understanding is that the priest can withhold absolution if he feels the confession is not sincerely made.
Since atonement is part of the function of confession and absolution, a priest may conclude that a person who has confessed to a serious crime to the priest, but will not go to the secular authorities and make a similar confession , is not truly penitent and therefore is not entitled to absolution.